The Quiet
by Skylarcat
Summary: The six months that Angie has been away and how Oscar somehow managed to survive.


**Title: **The Quiet  
**Author: **Skylarcat  
**Classification: **Venn One-Shot  
**Rating: **O for Oh, no you didn't.  
**Feedback: **This is for the quiet readers, who add my stuff to their favorite list, but never review. Speak up, I would love to hear your thoughts.  
**Summary: **Oscar's point of view of the six months that Angie is gone.  
**Note: **Flynn and Vega are characters that do not belong to me. Yes, I have used them without permission, but I promise to return them safe from harm, and maybe a little better from the wear and tear.

**...**

The quiet never bothered him before now; somehow, always managing to be a welcome change to the chaotic noise of his mind. It offered him a chance at peace, but that was before she had left. Now he felt rendered in a state of permanent silence, left to the disarray of his thoughts; all the things he should have done differently, all the words he should have said to make her stay. It was in the calm that he found her.

And she was everywhere.

He saw her in the endless pages of case files, her reflection there in the margins. He heard her laughter down the hallway, smelled her scent on his coat. Even felt her in between the sheets of his bed. But she was never really present, only her imprint burned into his imagination. There was no escaping her; no matter what he did or where he went, her memory would always find a way to slam into him, forcing him to remember what he longed to forget.

And he did try to forget her, but there was no forgetting.

The day he watched her pack up her desk, her hands shaking as she placed her things inside a cardboard box, and left with only a sad glance in his direction, was the day he died a little inside.

He tried to convince himself that he understood why she had to leave. There was something in her that was broken, some irreparable damage that he could never quite understand and her absence was her attempt to mend it. But it was only an excuse, his way of justifying her deserting him.

No matter how hard he tried to pretend that it didn't matter, that it had no effect on him, the truth was that he was barely keeping his head above water. Without her, he was flailing like a fish washed up on shore, his lungs collapsing from the need of oxygen, from the need of her.

Somehow, in her place, a burning began; an ache that managed to consume his entire being, to light his soul on fire. It muddled all his thoughts, left him incomplete and mangled, until one night he found himself outside the precinct screaming at the dark sky, wishing for some kind of absolution that would never come.

When Lucas asked him if he would mind if he moved to her desk, he shrugged it off. Made some comment about it not being used and that he didn't care. As he watched Lucas move his things to the area which once belonged to her, he tried not to flinch, tried to still his fingers from pinching the skin on his arm, tried not to scream, because how dare Lucas move his things over to her desk. She might come back, she might need it. And maybe, this time, she would even need him.

He couldn't remember the last time he had slept. It no longer seemed important, considering every time he closed his eyes all he saw was her. When he did dream, it was always the same thing; the image of her walking out the door with him powerless to stop her. He would always wake up covered in sweat, his only companion the darkness that surrounded him. After that, sleep never came easy. He could only wonder if she, too, was sleeping alone; if she, too, was dreaming of him.

He never thought he could hurt to this degree; a pain that rendered down to his bones and spread through his veins, engulfing every muscle; making it a challenge just to breathe, just to get up every day, just to live. But this was his life now without her; a chore that he fabricated his way through.

On the nights when it became unbearable, when he wasn't sure if he could make it, if he even wanted too; on those nights he would drink until he became numb and no longer felt anything. Swallowing his pain down with each shot of bourbon or any other alcohol he could find. It was only temporary, a moment of distraction, for the hurt always found a way to return. There to remind him of everything he had lost, and he could only cover it with whatever remedy worked best at the time until eventually, it refused to be buried.

Pain had a way of staying with a person long after the wound was inflicted. For him, happiness was always fleeting, making him chase after it, whereas pain was content to just linger. And it stayed with him now; like an inflamed scar, there to remind him of her.

The first case without her was the hardest. It was as though someone stuck their finger inside his almost healed wound, pulling away any remnants of a scab. He was bleeding out, all over the crime scene, in front of Lucas, in front of Betty. But no one noticed, no one offered him a towel, so he covered it with a band aid and kept going, pretending that the damage wasn't done.

After that, the cases became easier, offered him a distraction. If he didn't stare too long, she wouldn't appear and he got a moment of peace. But it was only for a moment because he would blink and she would come back into focus, causing him to remember. Then suddenly his universe would tilt just enough to make him feel like he was falling.

After a while, he stopped putting on band aids, didn't even bother to clean his injury. He allowed the infection to spread, to enter his blood steam. He began to wear the pain openly, but never spoke of it aloud.

When Lucas asked if he wanted to drive, he was quiet for a long moment, struck by the absurdity of the question. His words appeared foreign to him; Lucas might as well have been speaking another language and as he shook his head, thinking up some excuse; in reality, he wasn't ready for the change.

So he quietly climbed into the passenger's side of Lucas's car, careful to avert his attention to the passing landscape outside the window, pretending not to feel the younger detective's stare as he sought him out in the darkness. He wanted to be devoured by the loneliness, swallowed whole until the night air was just as empty as he felt. "Want to talk about it," Lucas's voice broke through his thoughts and for a moment he was tempted to ignore the intrusiveness.

A part of him did want to talk about it. To ask aloud the million questions that ran through his mind; that kept him awake. Was there something that he could have done differently? Did he deserve this? But the part that always won out was the one that never allowed her name to pass through his lips. "No," he answered, leaning his head back against the seat. What could he say really? There were no words that could be combined to describe the way he felt. "Nothing to talk about," he added softly, more as an answer to himself than anything.

"We both know that's not true," Lucas challenged, cutting his eyes in his direction. But he knew not to push the subject, allowing the car to once more return to silence as Vega traced his fingers along the mist on the window, knowing the young man was right. There was still everything left to be said. Maybe one day he would be able to find his voice again.

When he was alone, he welcomed the pain; allowed it to sink in, to remind him of his failures, of the catastrophe of her leaving him. The truth was he had failed her. He had failed at being a better friend, a better partner. He should have somehow prevented her from leaving. He should have told her all the ways that she had saved him, made him a better person. He should have admitted that if she walked out that door, the best part of him, the part she brought out, would no longer exist. That her departure would slaughter him right there at the altar, leaving nothing sacred and him stained forever by such carelessness.

When he thought like this, of all the countless ways that he could have changed everything, the pain would become so crippling that he was unable to move himself from the space on the floor to his own bed. Those moments were always the worst, where he prayed for a quick death, one in which didn't involve her.

He was a casualty in the damaged way in which she perceived things. Believing that she was saving him from the disaster of being involved with her, he respected the way she threw herself on the sword, but it wasn't the truth. He didn't need to be sheltered; the only turmoil was his life now without her.

He tried to not care. After all, she was the one to abandon him. But of course he thought about her, wondered if she was okay.

Betty did her part, nonchalantly offering him crumbs of information. "She's working in recruitment now," she said one day, never taking her eyes off the case file that she held.

He swallowed, knowing instantly who she was referring to and shoved his hands into his pockets, staring down at his shoes. He rolled his shoulders dramatically, as though he didn't have a care in the world. "Good for her."

Betty dropped the file on her desk and walked over to him, tugging on his tie until he finally made eye contact. "You know it's okay to be angry."

He shrugged. "I'm not angry. I have no reason to be." In truth, he wished he could be furious with her for leaving, for continuing on with her life while his fell apart. But the only emotion he could feel was complete and total hurt. She was supposed to be with him; his partner. He was prepared for everything that came with this job: prepared to be wounded, prepared to die, but he never expected it to be by her hand.

"Oscar, you've always been horrible at lying." Betty's voice cut through his thoughts, reminding him once again that he was never very good at acting. He may never express in words all that he felt, but the pain was evident in his facial expressions, the tension that ran through his muscles.

He was a broken man and wore that title without shame. Not many survived Angie; she was a storm to be reckoned with, leaving chaos in her wake and him barely breathing, attempting to pick up the remaining pieces left in her aftermath. If he made it through this, he could make it through anything; including the state of destruction and emptiness that she had left him in the second that she had walked away. He would endure the calm, the quiet, the eeriness that came from loving someone that he could never have.

Days became weeks, weeks became months as he continued his journey without her. She never called, never texted; cut off all communication with him altogether. But still, she haunted him.

Sometimes, late at night, he would make his way down empty hallways to where the requirement offices were, always to find her light still on. He would catch his breath, wondering if the nights were as endless for her as they felt for him.

Carefully, he would approach, never gaining enough courage to knock on her door. Instead, he would just stand at the entry, staring at her through the cracks. If she sensed him, she never let on.

He did it more than he liked to admit, but he was glutton for punishment. This time, ribbing the scab off himself and smearing his blood as though a martyr, sacrificing his life willingly for some cause of hers that even he didn't understand.

Their separation was slowly killing him. He knew he valued her as a friend, as a partner, but this was different. Coworkers changed, careers changed, friends moved on and people survived. Apart of his soul was missing with her departure, rending him incomplete somehow. He lost his footing as he stumbled through his life, continuously reaching out to find her not there. How could he have been in love with her this entire time and not have known it?

He was being selfish for needing her, for wanting her, when all she wanted was space. She was closing the door and he still stood with one foot on the inside. Realizing he needed to let her go was easier than actually doing it. Somehow, he made himself stop sneaking down to her office, trying to steal a glimpse of her.

He took on more cases, focusing on work. Doing his best to escape the thoughts of her, careful to avoid the giant hole that she had left with her absence, and for a while it worked. He managed to fool himself into thinking that he was okay, that he was over her. Six months had passed and he could almost breathe again.

That was until their latest case sent him on a downward spiral. A murder; it always involved a murder, death of some kind. This time his father was a suspect and he knew he was too close to the case, so he stepped back. To his surprise, Mark was supportive and encouraging, informing him that they were getting help with the case, that everything was going to be okay, but that did little to comfort him.

What he wished for was her; longed for her presence, needed her comfort. He watched as those long months spent convincing himself that he didn't miss or need her caved in on one another, collapsing at his feet in a heap.

Every fiber in his being screamed for him to make his way down to her office, to just simply sit outside her door; the sheer knowledge that she was on the other side would somehow be comforting enough. But he never allowed himself to even look in the direction of where she would be, knowing it would leave him completely valuable. He would show no sign of weakness, it wasn't in his character.

He never expected the assistance that Mark had referred to as being her. So when she walked in, he wasn't prepared for it. She appeared as uncomfortable as he felt, the distance between them palpable. He swallowed back the knot in his throat, trying to still his nerves. "Look at you," he managed and she offered a slight smile.

Their eyes locked for the first time in months, and he swore she never looked more beautiful, more dangerous, more like a storm than at that moment. She was about to wreck his life all over again and the only thing he could do was hold on tight as he watched his world once more flip upside down, crashing him off his feet. But he didn't mind falling for her, because after the storm came clear skies.

**End.**


End file.
